What is neurodiversity?

Hi, Georg Fasching here, helping you unlock your team’s genius. In the neurodiversity series, I am introducing not only the concept of neurodiversity, but also some of the better understood and better known neurotypes. But before we can get to any one of these particular neurotypes, I would like to share a brief summary of what neurodiversity is all about, so that you can ascertain how it could be useful in your work with a team, or in your work in the organisation as a leader.

First and foremost, neurodiversity is short form, as you might expect it, for neurological diversity. So neurological diversity is an understanding, an awareness and an acknowledgement as to the fact that our brains are wired somewhat differently. And when it comes to this wiring, there are some general patterns or groups of patterns, or themes, that we can look at. So these neurological wirings, these conditions, are with us lifelong. We are born with a certain prevalence for how our brain is wired, and we carry it with us throughout our lives. And there is still something to consider, which is called neuroplasticity, the ability of our brain to adapt and to learn and to rewire itself to some extent. However, there is a certain grounding in our neurotype that will be with us for the rest of our lives. So this means that there are some strengths that we can get from particular neurotypes, but it also means that there are some support aspects that we would want to be aware of. So everything that has a benefit, in some cases, or in many cases, certainly, life also has some sort of drawbacks that are quite useful to be aware of.

So what is affected by wiring, neurological wiring? It has all sorts of impact on our experience of life and the processing and the coordination of a number of factors. For example, language is in there, how we move, gross multifunctions, fine multifunctions, are in need of consideration. How we interact socially is impacted by our neurological wiring, how we process information. How we are able to focus on one thing for what extent of time. How easy it is for our brain, and for the cognitive focus, to shift from one thing to another, is also worth paying attention to. Generally, how our cognition works, and how our perception works, is in there as well, and in several of the neurotypes, also very important to consider is the sensory inputs, how they are getting processed across all our senses. So all of those things really need to be analysed and evaluated when we look at neurological diversity. And that’s what we’re gonna draw out in each of the different videos.

So we are not covering all of the different possibilities in this series, but we’re covering the more better understood and more well-known neurotypes. So for example, we will be covering the neurotype of ASC, or as it’s clinically called, ASD. That stands for autism spectrum disorders. I, wherever possible, will be using condition instead of disorder. We’re also gonna cover in the video ADHD, or ADHC, rather, attention deficit hyperactivity condition. We’re also covering dyslexia, and a few other conditions, including NT, which will be the next on the recurring in the neurodiversity series. So the key message is that there is a neurospectrum of different conditions and propensities and patterns of how different our brains are wired. And in teamwork and in organisations, it tends to be useful to seek diversity, just to seek strength through diversity, the more different neurotypes we have, the more we’re benefiting from the different strengths of the different neurotypes, the better it is usually for teamwork and for the organisation.

So hopefully this series will give you some insights into the different neurotypes that are out there, and how they can support each other, how they can complement each other, in order to create a better working environment for everyone, and in order to help the organisation create better value for its users and customers. And with that, I’d like to thank you very much for joining this first video, and look forward to seeing you in the next one in the neurodiversity series.